Chegada dos Portugueses ao Japão - The Portuguese Arrival to Japan
This artwork resides on a folding screen. Depicting the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century, it is a great panorama scene including many aspects of such an arrival. In contrast to the great exaggerations made on the kurofune in their artistic renditions, the Portuguese ship appears to have a realistic depiction. During the earliest days of contact, the Portuguese were allowed to find port in Nagasaki and establish a community there. Interestingly, this folding screen seems to be lacking any Japanese people, and only shows people dressed in European style (there are some dark-skinned people who are performing slave labor duties, so they are almost definitely African slaves taken on the journey). Many of the Europeans who have made the journey appear wealthy because they are being carried on palanquins or elephants, or otherwise being catered to by slaves. This is especially apparent on the left side. In the middle, the figures appear to be mixed in station, with some running in what may be a reaction to the busy tasks of making port. Others are standing around and pointing, so perhaps they have already been in Nagasaki for a time, and they are looking onto the ship coming in as a new arrival. On the far left, there is a temple that is surrounded by clouds. It is the only Asian object in the painting, and the fact that it’s shrouded might signify the growing discontent between the Japanese and the Europeans at the time that led the Shogun to shut all other ports.
Although I was not able to find the name of the painter, my thought is that a Japanese artist painted it, since there were not too many opportunities for sharing artistic styles by this time. If this is the case, then by the same logic I think the painter created this for a Japanese audience, perhaps a well-to-do merchant family who had ties to Portuguese merchants. Besides the architecture of the temple, the other aspect that tells me it was painted by a Japanese artist is the style of the animals, especially the dogs, whose bodies are curved in a way that is reminiscent of depictions of kami, or Shinto divinities.